Fun_People Archive
25 Sep
QsOTD - Anderson, 9/25/00

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 100 19:38:48 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: QsOTD - Anderson, 9/25/00

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Forwarded-by: Kevin Johnsrude <kevinj@roguewave.com>


"In 1980, I wrote a song for William Burroughs called 'Language Is a Virus.'
 This was quote from one of Burroughs' books.  It's a strange thing for a
 writer to say that language is a disease communicable by mouth.  It's also
 a very Buddhist thing to say.  I mean, in Buddhist thought there's the
 thing and there's the name for the thing and that's one thing too many.
 Because sometimes when you say a word, you think that you actually
 understand it.  In fact, all you're doing is saying it, you don't
 necessarily understand it at all. So language, well, it's a kind of trick."

	- Laurie Anderson, "Laurie Anderson,", page 99.



"Sometimes it's hard to believe that everybody is so incredibly enthusiastic
 about the digital revolution.  I have to say that I'm getting a little
 burned out on all this stuff.  I now have eleven computers and it's a
 really big job keeping up with the updates and things keep crashing and
 I've gotten to the point where half the time all I want to do is throw
 all this stuff out the window--floppies, zip drives, monitors,
 mice--everything--just get rid of it.  I mean I'm spending so much time
 fixing things and learning new systems and I'm thinking, 'Wait a second.
 Is this how technology is improving my life?'

"And I find myself rereading the Unabomber's message to the world and
 thinking, 'He's right!  It's true.  Technology is taking the human race
 on a reckless ride to nowhere.'

"And speaking of rides, who thought of this phrase, 'The Information
 Highway' anyway?  I think it was Dick Cavett who said, 'Highway?  That's
 something long and gray and boring that kills forty to fifty thousand
 people a year.'

"To sum it up, I'm ready to join the Lead Pencil Club, which is a sort of
 loose organization I just found out about and it's based on Long Island
 and this club advocates abolishing all electronics and going back to lead
 pencils and magic markers.  But the thing is it's a little hard to get in
 touch with any of the club members actually...so if you want to join it's
 pretty difficult."

	- Laurie Anderson, "Laurie Anderson", page 173.

© 2000 Peter Langston